‘Wholly inadequate:’ Florida AG says he will no longer enforce these school laws

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – On Thursday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier took to social media to announce that his office would no longer be enforcing some school-based laws.

In a video on X, Uthmeier said that certain statutes in the state expressly prohibit religious schools from accessing public funds — an issue that he claimed is “likely unconstitutional.”

In his opinion, which was filed on Thursday, Uthmeier cites the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which protects citizens’ rights to “live out their faiths in daily life.”

Uthmeier also cites the Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another.

“It has also been used to justify the Blaine Amendments in many states, including Florida, that purport to impose blanket prohibitions on the receipt of government funds by religious schools,” the opinion reads.

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As such, the attorney general argues that the state shouldn’t be able to disqualify certain private firms from funding solely because they’re religious.

“Any attempt to discriminate against otherwise qualifying religious entities is ‘odious to our Constitution and could not stand,’” he writes. “The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly invalidated the exclusion of state benefits from religious entities.”

Therefore, Uthmeier says the following laws discriminate on the basis of religion and are thus “unconstitutional.”

It’s not the first time that Uthmeier declared he wouldn’t enforce state laws, though.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year, he also put out a list of 80 laws that discriminate on the basis of factors like race, saying that he wouldn’t uphold these rules, either.

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[Read the full list of race-based laws below]

Meanwhile, you can read Uthmeier’s latest opinion in full below: